


Stay Strong, Ponds

by starknight



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Doctor/Companion Friendship, Gen, Humor, Minor Amy Pond/Rory Williams, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Thirteen Reunites with the Ponds, Thirteen needs a hug, Yaz and Ryan both have crushes on Amy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-08
Updated: 2020-06-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:14:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24614353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starknight/pseuds/starknight
Summary: Thirteen bumps into Rory and gets a much needed hug.
Relationships: The Doctor & Rory Williams, Thirteenth Doctor & Rory Williams
Comments: 22
Kudos: 185





	Stay Strong, Ponds

**Author's Note:**

> [Originally posted in response to a prompt on tumblr](https://gay-star-knight.tumblr.com/post/620338000762667008/i-feel-powerful-with-angst). I won't lie, it got away on me a bit, and ended up being both much longer than intended and much angstier than intended. Enjoy ;)

Rory isn’t surprised to hear the TARDIS engines. The Doctor has been clingy lately, showing up every other weekend for a trip somewhere, and only dropping them back after four extra planets - he insists it’s the TARDIS at fault, but the Doctor is about as good at lying as Rory is. 

That is to say, he’s shit at it.

But Rory is surprised to hear the TARDIS engines at the hospital. He’s not sure the Doctor even knows he has a job, let alone what it is and where he does it. There’s probably something alien and murdery going on. As he hurries along the corridor, he eyes the people passing him nervously, on the lookout for any dangly bits coming out of their ears. Some of them notice, and stare back, affronted.

“Sorry,” he mumbles under his breath, “sorry, sorry, in a rush.” 

But before he turns the corner, something out of the corner of his eye flags his attention. It’s one of their remission patients, Graham. And he’s definitely not supposed to be in the radiology suite. 

Rory pushes open the door with a faint squeak.

“Graham?” he asks tentatively, squinting at his patient’s ears. They appear normal.

“Oh! Sorry, got me directions all mixed up. I’m not s’posed to be in here, am I?”

“Not really,” says Rory apologetically. “Are you booked in for a remission checkup?”

“Yeah, only there’s something blocking the door to the usual ward, it won’t open.” Graham looks sheepish. Rory makes a mental note to remind the Doctor about not parking in front of doors. It’s a recurring problem.

“Oh, well, I’m sure it’s nothing out of the ordinary. Would it be alright if you came into our overflow ward instead? I can do your checkup today.” 

The Doctor will just have to wait. It’s his fault, anyway. If he hadn’t parked there, Rory wouldn’t have to cover for him.

“Oh,” says Graham, “Of course.”

Rory’s taking Graham’s blood pressure in the overflow ward when he hears the familiar sound of a sonic right outside the door.

“Oh god,” he says.

“Not now,” says Graham at the same time.

They stare at each other.

“You’ve been off travelling, haven’t you?” Rory asks slowly, his mind starting to whirr.

“Er,” says Graham. “Yeah. Barcelona.”

Rory knows that Barcelona is the most generic holiday destination you can use as an excuse that’s still far enough away to be worth a long trip. He knows this, because he’s used it as an excuse himself. Too many times to count.

“Right,” says Rory. The sonicing gets louder, pulsing. The door rattles. “Nice and… safe, then, is it?”

The door bursts open, and Rory looks up to see the most Doctorish person he’s ever seen who wasn’t actually the Doctor. She’s got a long coat with an unnecessary hood, colourful suspenders, rolled up trousers, and boots that Rory is fairly certain Amy lost two weeks ago. She stares at him, and her face drops so hard Rory expects the ground to shake.

He stares back. There’s something niggling in the corner of his brain, a thought about regeneration, and timey-wimey-ness, and Graham acting weirdly and the TARDIS engines and -

_ Wait _ .

“Ohhh, no,” he says. “No, no, you’re  _ not  _ \- are you? You are! You’re - you’re - you’re -”

“Yeah,” says the Doctor in a small voice, still staring. “I didn’t, um, I didn’t know you worked here.”

Rory doesn’t say anything for ten seconds. He knows it’s ten seconds because the blood pressure monitor beeps ten times. He is vaguely aware of Graham tapping him on the arm, but his brain isn’t big enough to process the way the Doctor’s eyebrows have knit together, let alone her trembling lip and shaking hands.

“Well, I do,” Rory says.

“‘Scuse me,” Graham interrupts. “But this thing is actually quite painful -”

“I’m going to hug you,” says the Doctor, ignoring Graham, and walking towards Rory, “And it might hurt, because it’s been a while. Not for any - you know - bad reason or anything. The future is… safe. Really… you know… normal. And safe.”

It’s times like this Rory really wishes the Doctor could keep their mouth shut. He’s going to have nightmares about the haunted look in her eyes, the ache there that the Doctor -  _ his _ Doctor - always goes to such lengths to hide. He stands up as she approaches, feeling increasingly awkward, and tries to smile for her sake.

“Oh, come here, you idiot,” she says, and pulls him into a bone-crushing hug. She might be shorter than him, but she’s bloody strong, and her fingers dig into his back.

“Ow,” he says, but hugs her back. He thinks she’s trying to tell him something, but he doesn’t know what it is. He also tries to ignore her sniffing over his shoulder.

“I’ll just take this bloody thing off meself, then,” Graham mutters, and Rory hears him take off the blood pressure monitor.

The Doctor lets him go after another moment, and pulls back to look him in the eyes. She still doesn’t understand personal space, apparently.

“You’re family to me,” she says firmly. “You and Amy are family to me, and I love you both so, so much. I know I don’t say it enough - or at all - but I do. Okay?”

“Um,” says Rory. “Yeah, we know. And you know I feel - we both feel - the same. Right?”

“Right,” says the Doctor, and sniffs again. “Right. Come on, Graham. Rory’s got a lot of kissing to do today, and we don’t want to hold him up any longer.”

Rory opens his mouth, shuts it again, and waves bye to Graham as he’s dragged out of the door by a determined-looking Doctor. He checks his phone. His shift is actually over, and Amy’s work finishes early today, so…

He’s almost made it home when the TARDIS materialises right in front of him again, in the middle of the pavement. He almost runs into it, actually. The door squeaks open, and the Doctor’s head pops out.

“By the way,” she says, “Catch. You’ll need it.”

Rory catches the small metal object she throws to him reflexively, and opens his mouth to ask - well -  _ something, _ but she’s already gone, the TARDIS doors closed.

He looks down at the object. It’s an old watch, one of the wind-up ones, chipped and battered and worn. There’s an inscription on the back.  _ Stay strong, Ponds. Love you. - The Doctor (Number 13! Don’t tell 11.)  _ Rory runs a thumb over it. It’s touching, but in a weird I-have-no-idea-what-catastrophe-made-you-grieve-for-us-like-this sort of way.

He hears running footsteps behind him, and then Amy is beside him, looking up at the TARDIS.

“I heard it from the house,” she pants. “Where’s the Doctor?”

“Oh my GOD,” comes a female voice, not the Doctor’s, from the general direction of the TARDIS. “Is that -”

“SHE’S IN THE PERFUME AD!” yells a deeper male voice.

“Doctor, can we please go and -”

“No! I shouldn’t have gone back, the timestream’s already -”

“BUT SHE’S SO COOL AND PRETTY!”

“She is very cool and pretty, Ryan, but the laws of time are -”

“You literally  _ just  _ broke them to give the other one a musty old watch -”

“That’s it, we’re leaving,  _ clearly _ you can’t be trusted not to rip a hole in the fabric of spacetime.”

“But -”

“Doctor,  _ please -” _

The TARDIS dematerialises, the voices inside still arguing audibly, but they get fainter and fainter until all that’s left is the rustling of the wind in the trees.

“Who were they?” Amy demands, looking a little insulted. “And why did the Doctor take them and not us?”

“I’m not going to pretend to understand,” says Rory. “It’s a timey-wimey thing.”

“It’s always a timey-wimey thing. What’s that you’ve got?”

Rory looks down at the watch. He didn’t notice before, but there’s very faint circular markings etched behind the inscription, the same ones he’s seen in notebooks the Doctor leaves lying around. He looks up at Amy and shrugs.

“Spoilers?”

She punches him in the arm, and scoops the watch out of his hand. She bites her lip as she reads the inscription.

“Stay strong? Why do we need to stay strong?”

“I don’t know,” says Rory. “Maybe we become weightlifters, or boxers, or those people who lift heavy boxes.”

She gives him a look.

“Sorry,” he sighs. “I just don’t really want to think about how it’s all going to end.”

Amy puts her arm around him, and he leans onto her shoulder. They watch the autumn leaves swirl across the pavement.

“However it ends, we’ll be together,” she says. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Rory murmurs, his heart warming. “Together.”


End file.
